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Bambino Heist
The Bambino Heist was a heist devised by Cheese Bing, Ben, and their allies on October 16 to prevent T. Rick Collectine from selling the Bambino at Professional Gideon's Annual Sports and Collectibles Auction the following day. Prelude The Museum of Treasures In its day, the Museum of Treasures was extremely popular, being frequented by five hundred people per hour for centuries (though this may be an exaggeration). In the 1920s, it was bombed. One object survived, the Bambino, and it was hidden away in the McLeach House for decades. Discovery Cheese Bing, who was well known for formulating the plans for his friends' schemes and became known as 'The Man With The Plan', had a father who became so obsessed with one of his creations, the SmartPick, self-described "fruit picker of the future", that he quit his engineering job to buy time to develop it. Bing privately believed it was useless, but the common sense of the matter would not leave him alone. His family had bet their entire future upon it, and he frequently overheard them fighting over money. Being too young to get a part-time job, Bing was agitated that no amount of scheming could solve his family's financial crisis. In October of the same year, Bing and his friends, with help from their teacher, created a presentation regarding how the abandoned and allegedly haunted McLeach House could be turned into a skate park. Unfortunately, the government turned them down and even refused to watch the presentation. Bing was enraged, knowing they had only been cast aside because they were underage. Knowing the McLeach House would be demolished in the morning, Bing planned a sleepover there. To give them an excuse to come, he arranged two fake sleepovers. Thirty people agreed to participate, but only Ben wound up coming, much to Bing's outrage. Lying next to him on a sleeping bag, Ben asked Cheese what it mattered how many people were there, but Cheese pointed out that they would know, that they would prove to themselves that "they’re more than a mouse caught in a trap". Finally, he told Ben they should get some sleep so the trip will not feel like it lasted as long. Ben agreed and dozed off. Bing let out a low whistle of admiration at Ben's ability to sleep through his fears. It was harder for Bing to settle down. He stayed up because he was thinking over the government's denial. He regarded Ben’s slumber with envy, as he himself was too deep in thought to sleep. At last, he decided to wander the empty halls of the McLeach house, his flashlight guiding him down hallways and through rooms. Suddenly, Cheese located a piece of furniture that had not been emptied out like the rest. He went over to investigate. Bing played with the many drawers and compartments, until one remained stuck to its sockets. Cheese accidentally hit a small button, and the drawer opened to reveal an old, faded card from the 1920s. Because his family was very much struggling to make ends meet, he knew he could use the money. He had lived with the same friends for eleven years, something he would not give up without a fight. He doubted the value of the card, though he was still eluded. Business deal Finally, Bing went to sleep. The next morning, Ben awoke to hear the beginning of the building's destruction and hastily awoke him, and they barely escaped from their predicament. Uncovering the truth As Cheese set down the SmartPick, the pole brushed against the antenna of his family’s old black-and-white TV. For an instant, the small screen resolved itself into a very familiar face before the image was clear. It was T. Rick Collectine, standing in the courtyard of her museum and holding the baseball card Cheese had sold her, surrounded by cameramen. Turning up the volume, Cheese learned from the report that Collectine knew the card was valuable, since it came from the long-ago fallen Museum of Treasures. When asked what she would sell it for, Collectine insisted the card was too valuable to simply be labeled with a price tag. She intended to sell it at the Professional Gideon's Annual Sports and Collectibles Auction on October 17. The opening bid was to be 200, 000 dollars, but Collectine claimed it could be the rival of the only card that sold for over a million dollars. Bing was shocked and infuriated beyond endurance, realizing the Bambino was right in his hands, enough to permanently solve his family's money problems. Thinking quickly, he lied that he was going to Ben's house before taking off to Collectine's Museum. He arrived just as the press conference was breaking up under the watchful eye of the same fierce dog from before. Suddenly, he realized he did not know what to do next. He may be The Man With The Plan, but he had thought no further than getting himself to the store. Additionally, he feared that no one would believe him because he was a child. When the media people had gone, Cheese ventured up to the museum. The fierce guard dog blocked the front door, its teeth bared. Cheese sighed, and Collectine ordered the dog to let Cheese inside. Cheese immediately accused her of knowing the baseball card was real. Collectine lied that it was a different card, and she had already sold Cheese's. Cheese stared at her, blown away at the mere dishonesty of the woman. Collectine continued, lamenting that the world "is a big fat scary place with people who will walk all over you if you give them half a chance," before telling him to learn from his mistake. She further gloated that she had won the "fight" for money, something everyone wanted. Cheese warned she would not get away with her trickery. Feeling threatened, Collectine summoned Luthor, who cornered Cheese against a display case. As it prepared to bite him, Collectine insisted that Cheese was "just leaving." Terrified, Cheese Bing retreated in the direction of the exit. Back on bike, Cheese struggled to wrestle his spinning thoughts in a sort of order. He had been cheated, not from a mere card, but from the entire future of his family. He prepared to embark on the greatest plan of his life. Infiltration of Collectine's Museum Cheese filled out an outline of their plan of attack. Not knowing how to figure out the keypad code, the two boys hid inside a large globe cedar directly across 9th Street from Collectine’s Museum. Experimentally, Cheese prepared to hoist himself up. Suddenly, Luthor burst out of the darkness and slammed into the fence, trying to chew through the mesh and eat the children. Stunned, Bing reeled, causing Ben to scrape his arm against the cement. Bing told a shaken Ben that they should talk to Savannah, an underage animal expert. When they arrived at Savannah's house, she let her rabbit she was communicating with hop back to its cage. Bing asked her if she could talk to dogs the way she talked to rabbits. He told her about Luthor, but not how they knew him, and Savannah claimed that he was only vicious because his owner must have raised him brutally, and decided to prove their assumption that no dog is one hundred percent pure evil by following them to the museum. With Savannah making nightly attempts in an attempt to reach the puppy within, a process Ben monitored, he and Bing videotaped Tom keying in the code to the store so they could study it downstairs on an old plasma TV in Ben's living room in Super Pumpkin Man's sanctuary. With Pumpkin's inadvertent assistance, they deduced the last number, but then Savannah told them she had given up trying to help Luthor. Shortly afterwards, Collectine unbolted the safe and took it home with her. Upon arriving, she withdrew the card and hid it under her cabinet in a Ziploc bag. She also brought Luthor home in order to guard it. With everything in place, Cheese Bing and Ben made their way to Collectine's Museum and infiltrated it as soon as Tom left, rendering the building vacated. Having gained entry, Bing stole behind the counter, only to realize the safe was already emptied, and the baseball card with it. Miserably returning home, Bing and Ben agreed not to consider it a truly successful break-in, for the vault was already removed, so there was nothing that could be stolen. Furthermore, its protection was minimal without Luthor's presence. Preparing for the end Shortly afterwards, she appeared on a series of video clips advertising Gideon's Annual Sports Auction. The baseball card was the talk of the year's event; announcers called it "the most exciting find in the past half-century." One of the videos consisted of an excerpt from an interview with T. Rick Collectine. Smirking, she looked on while a conference table of experts "oohed and aahed over the card". Everyone agreed it was going to sell for a fortune. One woman asked why it was so cold (due to being hidden inside a turkey), and Collectine simply answered that the coldness represented the cold-hard cash it would bring in. Unbeknownst to her, her e-mails were being intercepted by Melissa and forwarded to Cheese Bing, who watched the reports with shaking fury. The heist Infiltration To be added. Destroying the safe To be added. Locating the card To be added. Redhead's betrayal To be added. Escape To be added. Aftermath To be added. Appearances *''The Quest for the Baseball Collectible'' Category:Missions Category:The Quest for the Baseball Collectible